The Paradox of Wisdom: How the Mind Gets Stronger as the Brain Gets Old by Elhanan Goldberg, translation: Baruria Ben-Baruch, editing: Atlia Zilber, scientific editor: Zvi Atzmon, 286 pages
Courtesy of the websiteספרים TEXT
The connection between old age and wisdom is already known, and has been accepted in all cultures since the dawn of history. Now comes the neuropsychologist Elhanan Goldberg and finds a basis for this in our mind and way of working. Goldberg's starting point is the paradox: if indeed wisdom increases with age, how does this reconcile with the accepted assumption that mental powers actually decrease with age?
Goldberg perceives wisdom in biological and neurological terms, but first he discusses it as a psychological and social phenomenon, and by describing the lives of great leaders and artists, he shows how a strong mind may continue to act and even make a move despite nervous exhaustion.
The neural mechanism that underlies wisdom and provides cognitive advantages in the aging process is, according to Goldberg, the pattern recognition mechanism. The mental thrift provided by this mechanism, he claims, allows a person to complete complex mental tasks with minimal utilization of his mental resources, and it acts as a counterweight to the decline in these resources with aging.
Goldberg bases his theory on research and discoveries in areas that are at the forefront of brain research, such as the role of the prefrontal lobes (the executive brain) in the acquisition and storage of knowledge, the plasticity of the brain and especially the duality of the brain, the difference between its two halves when it comes to learning, emotions and the rate of degeneration. Goldberg weaves all of these into a broad theory, pulsating in its scope and complexity, which sheds new light on many of the fundamental issues of brain research.
Elhanan's writing is light and personal. He tells us about his patients, his walks in Central Park with his dog Brit and his menopause crisis. He dedicates the book to his contemporaries, the baby boom generation, who are as worried as he is about the signs of aging evident in them.
Elhanan Goldberg was born in the Soviet Union and was a student of the great Russian neuropsychologist Alexander Luria. In the 70s he settled in New York, where he is engaged in research, academic teaching and clinical treatment.
6 תגובות
Theories in the various sciences do require experiments, laboratories and as a result - a very high capital investment, and as the technology becomes more advanced, even higher budgets are needed.
Einstein's theory of relativity can be seen as almost alone in the physical world, which was carried out by pure thinking and thought experiments and received enormous recognition around the world, even though it was then the "theory of relativity" and only after several predictions that he predicted in advance and were correct, was the theory of relativity recognized as a theory and not as a theory.
I suppose that there is a chance, perhaps even quite high, that the theory of general relativity (special relativity would probably have been discovered a few years after Einstein, for the reason that they were already more or less in the right order) would not have been discovered, perhaps even until today, the idea is really great in its abstraction.
It is also really interesting what exactly causes space to behave in this way as Einstein described, progress in the direction of gravitational waves may shed some light on the subject if the directions they are investigating are indeed correct.
Adam and Avner.
As far as I know, the claim is true in general, although as Nimrod pointed out, it is more pronounced in mathematics.
Of course there are also exceptions.
The difference between mathematics and the sciences can be explained by the fact that mathematics is all in the head and there is nothing that slows down the progress in its investigation except the ability and desire of the person. The rate of progress in the other sciences is also dictated by the experiment and this, in turn, requires laboratories, budgets and bureaucracy. Even theoretical physicists such as those who deal with string theory (and who actually deal with mathematics) cannot declare a breakthrough until they have found an experiment to test the theory.
It is true that many scientists made great discoveries in their twenties, precisely in this matter there is a certain contrast between the fields, in mathematics many great discoveries were made by relatively young mathematicians while discoveries in fields such as physics, chemistry, genetics, etc. occurred at a slightly older age.
To Michael
The myth of scientists reaching their peak at a young age is well known. I personally tend to treat him with a bit of skepticism, is he really true? And what would be considered young? Is a scientist at the age of 45-40 still considered young?
To Michael
I think you are right about the mathematicians
But is this generally true?
In yesterday's edition (Monday - May 26, 2008) of Atun Ha'aretz, an article appeared called "From now on don't say senile, speak wisely" which discusses the same topic and brings a slightly different approach. According to this article - the older brain finds it more difficult to focus mainly and is more distracted by the details and this slows down its action, on the one hand, but increases its depth, on the other hand.
I wanted to attach a link here, but a problem with the "Haaretz" website currently prevents me from accessing yesterday's articles, so try to search for yourself.
All this is well and good, and considering my personal age, even encouraging, yet the fact that the great scientists and mathematicians reached their breakthroughs at a young age cannot be ignored.